Safe Return Doubtful

Contemporary American Literature published October 2025

Kraus’s ambitious novel is based around her own childhood in 1960s Connecticut, and then later in her life in the north of Minnesota.

It’s in three distinct parts. In the first, Jasper and Emma Greene and their daughters, Catt and Carla, move from the Bronx to Milford, Connecticut. Emma struggles to connect with her new community, Jasper works long hours. Carla has a learning disability, while and Catt, the protagonist, has literary ambitions, though she struggles at school, moving into an adolescence of truancy and random hitchhiking.

The second part is set forty years later in 2019, the Trump years, in Minnesota’s Iron Range. Catt is a now well-regarded writer, living in Los Angeles, spending summers in Minnesota. Her relationship with her long-term partner deteriorates though Catt is dealing with the media after her first novel is adapted for TV. Her attention though is on a shocking, drug-fuelled murder close to her cottage. She is obsessed with finding out more about the four young people involved.

In the last part, Catt searches for answers to this senseless crime, alongside a fictionalised account of the events leading up to the real-life murder.

Ultimately, it’s a skilful mix of contemporary literature and a fixation true crime that blends into a gripping narrative. It took my surprise actually; I’ve been so disappointed with recent American contemporary literature that this provided a much needed boost.

My GoodReads score 4 / 5